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Eps. 1-2 together function as an introduction to the Muv-Luv franchise and Total Eclipse specifically. As someone who never played the games (or really even knew what they were) before this anime series came along, it's nice to have them here. To be dropped directly into the main story without any idea of what BETA are or humanity's dire situation would just leave me scratching my head, and the alternative would be to stop adapting the LN events now and again for pointless infodumping to keep from losing the newbies. If the point of the Total Eclipse anime is to raise overall awareness of the franchise in the public and draw positive attention, the last thing the show would want to do is present itself as "Hey, here's this mecha show that doesn't make a damn bit of sense unless you've been following the franchise for years."

So the question is, then, does it work as an introduction? Largely, it does. That is to say, after two episodes, I'm now aware that BETA are really scary and ick, that death is a brutal reality anyone can face at any time, and that there's a reasonable in-universe reason why "real-world" military machinery has been replaced with mecha. Similarly, I'm now aware that there are significant differences between Muv-Luv's Japan and RL Japan. And Episode 1, while it's not immediately obvious, helped to show off some of Yui's steeped-in-Imperial-samurai-warrior-culture background that we've already seen the significance of in her character interactions in Episode 4, alongside the more brutal experiences in Episode 2.

That doesn't mean it's a flawless introduction, though. There are plenty of things that happen on-screen that make the newbie (me) wonder "Why?" For example, just what is up with a girls' school of mecha-pilot-trainees? That's a question that's never adequately explained--and worse yet, thanks to AS, I was able to find out that in Muv-Luv there's actually a simple, yet reasonable answer to that question (and moreover, one that isn't some silly hand-wave like "only women can operate the Applied Phlebotinum that make the mecha work!"). Similarly, the political history of Imperial Japan (or more accurately, "just why the hell is there an Imperial Japan?"--this universe is clearly not just "our real world history with BETA's arrival as a point of divergence) and the rest of the world's interactions with BETA are passed over, which left me groping until, again, I sought out spoilers of my own accord. Those kind of gaps--particularly, when we see things on-screen that raise the question, but aren't given the answers, despite the fact that the answers do exist (it's one thing to ignore that in a series where no one's taken the time to think up explanations, but where there are in fact specific, underlying world-building facts involved...), and when the questions are about basic world-building rather than the kind of thing that we're supposed to have teased out for us in the story and then have resolved as plot points, is a flaw in an introduction.

But ultimately, the first two episodes of Total Eclipse did their job: they made me interested in seeing more, and convinced me that the show is a lot more than the fanservice fest its eroge roots could have made it (or which a lazy adaptation could also make it). If these episodes weren't as interesting as they were, I'd probably have wandered away from the show instead of sticking around and getting pulled in.

I'll leave it up to others to critique the animation. Frankly, I don't notice that, anyway; the quality of the art will almost always catch my eye and distract me from the technical merits of the animation, unless there are huge mistakes.

Does anyone here recognize the guys who show up in the portraits that are hanging in the Takamura family home just before the eight minute mark in the first episode? I'd sort of assumed they were there to illustrate the family's proud history of military service, but there was one post on another forum that indicated the people illustrated were high level war criminals in real life, and I have to admit a couple of them seem like people I should recognize.

Kind of disturbing if true, but since the poster didn't specify who the individual people were its difficult to verify whether the claim is true or false.

I thought the first two episodes were very fascinating. They did a fantastic job of initiating me, someone who has no experience with this franchise, into the story. The story itself isn't the greatest thing ever, nor is it perfect by any means, but I did like that it had kind of a Full Metal Panic! meets Blue Gender sort of idea. I liked that it started out confusingly and with some very typical scenarios for building up knowledge of the situation, and then thrust the characters and the viewers into the thick of it. I like that it got very gritty and very serious at a rapid pace, and it did a great job of portraying that the stakes were high and that it would only get much worse. I even liked that when the end had come and all hope was lost, it was made this way both for the characters and for their surroundings. All of what they set out to protect was destroyed, and only a shred of hope for what was left remained.

And then, you know... The other 23 episodes came around with their beach scenes and hot springs trips, and literally ignored the fact that the planet is being invaded by aliens that eat people. Yes. Literally ignored. I used that word correctly in that sentence.

To be fair, Total Eclipse was never supposed to be about the big war, it was a sidestory.

As I've said before, an analogy to this is comparing the training episodes of Band of Brothers to the rest of the war episodes; or, alternatively, a movie about Spitfire R&D versus the Battle of Britain. The role they're playing at Yukon is important; it's just that the effects aren't readily seen.

Also, in all fairness to Kouki, the beach episodes cane about because TE was supposed to end at episode 5, with the Yui/Yuuya duel. That's where Kouki planned to end the serial novel. Then it was realised that TE was wildly popular and had the potential to be expanded further, so Kouki whipped up the beach episodes quickly to give himself some room to plan out that later arcs, which resulted in Kamchatka, Blue Flag and Red Shift.

As for your statement that the later episodes ignore how the world is being eaten, I assume that means you skipped over Kamchatka and Red Shift.

To be fair, Total Eclipse was never supposed to be about the big war, it was a sidestory.

Then don't start your side story with a double length pilot episode explaining on how this is a story about a losing struggle against an alien race where so many adult soldiers have already been slaughtered and the situation is so urgent that children have to be rushed to the frontlines (and they're not doing much better themselves.)

It's that simple.

Yeah, you can say "Well the series isn't that bad if you just look past the single most giant idiotic misleading fault in the writing," but at the end of the day it IS still a giant idiotic misleading fault in the writing and it deserves all the criticism it has coming.

Then don't start your side story with a double length pilot episode explaining on how this is a story about a losing struggle against an alien race where so many adult soldiers have already been slaughtered and the situation is so urgent that children have to be rushed to the frontlines (and they're not doing much better themselves.)

It's that simple.

Yeah, you can say "Well the series isn't that bad if you just look past the single most giant idiotic misleading fault in the writing," but at the end of the day it IS still a giant idiotic misleading fault in the writing and it deserves all the criticism it has coming.

I will note that this same criticism ought to be leveled at Macross Plus as well; the show establishes that this is a dangerous verse and that the VF-11 cannot hack it anymore as a frontline fighter.

Cue dates, brawls, driving a bike along the coastal road (well, the same idea, if it's not exactly a coastal road per se), singing, crazy vocaloid, some sort of strange scheme that never quite got explained... resolution of an old feud and a love triangle.

Double standards, much?

Or, hell, Inside Delta Force. The beginning of Beckwith's memoir establishes that this is a dangerous world and that terrorism is on the rise and the US govt and the US Army need to get their ass in gear.

Cue several hundred pages of selection, training, preparation, training, psych evals and more training. *shrug* But you're right, they're not out there kicking ass, so it's a misleading fault.

From what I understand, TE proper started without Yui's backstory, which was added into the light novels. Whether Kouki's call worked in the end is up to us all to decide; I certainly don't feel as strongly about it as you do. That doesn't mean that you can throw your opinion around as if it were Gospel.

__________________

~Speaking my mind, even when it costs me~One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine.

Then don't start your side story with a double length pilot episode explaining on how this is a story about a losing struggle against an alien race where so many adult soldiers have already been slaughtered and the situation is so urgent that children have to be rushed to the frontlines (and they're not doing much better themselves.)

It's that simple.

Yeah, you can say "Well the series isn't that bad if you just look past the single most giant idiotic misleading fault in the writing," but at the end of the day it IS still a giant idiotic misleading fault in the writing and it deserves all the criticism it has coming.

The first two episodes were necessary because the anime adaptation needed to be accessible to newcomers, and the Total Eclipse novels didn't have a very newcomer friendly intro. How do you expect someone with no familiarity with the Muv Luv verse to understand the importance of weapons development projects like XFJ if they haven't seen what humanity is up against? And how do you expect anyone to understand Yui's attitude if they haven't been introduced to Muv-Luv's alternate history version of Japan?

In my opinion the problem with the first two episodes isn't that the writers were idiots, its that they did their jobs a little too well. :P The rest of the series is actually a pretty decent action/drama if you ignore the occasional bit of annoying fan service/harem material.

I will note that this same criticism ought to be leveled at Macross Plus as well; the show establishes that this is a dangerous verse and that the VF-11 cannot hack it anymore as a frontline fighter.

You know what Macross Plus has over Total Eclipse, though?

At least Bryan Cranston is consistently the main character.

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Or, hell, Inside Delta Force. The beginning of Beckwith's memoir establishes that this is a dangerous world and that terrorism is on the rise and the US govt and the US Army need to get their ass in gear.

Cue several hundred pages of selection, training, preparation, training, psych evals and more training. *shrug* But you're right, they're not out there kicking ass, so it's a misleading fault.

So the book opens with the author describing terrorism is a bad thing and needs to be directly fought, then segues to dudes training to fight terrorism.

But... that's actually closer to what we see in the first episode of Total Eclipse compared to the rest of the mindless schlock after episode 3.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

The first two episodes were necessary because the anime adaptation needed to be accessible to newcomers, and the Total Eclipse novels didn't have a very newcomer friendly intro.

This is the most pretentious excuse I always hear.

Muv-Luv did not invent the Sci-Fi Alien Bug War genre. You don't need to spend an hour brutally depicting the bug war before your audience understands there's bugs in your fictitious universe and humans fight the bugs. Again, if you DO write it that way, you completely misrepresent the setting, tone, and main character of your plot. If anything, it makes your story MORE confusing to newcomers because they're the ones who won't know ahead of time your main plot is really about a completely unrelated cast of test pilots jacking off in Alaska. If you just start the show from the third episode and say "There's a bug war and these people build weapons to fight the bugs," your audience isn't going to be thoroughly lost or confused as to wtf is going on.

Fuck, they could have just used the proper Starship Troopers format by opening the show in the middle of the laser gun mission in Russia, then backtracking to explain how the test base characters met each other and wound up in Russia. There's plenty of more coherent ways you could have started the Total Eclipse anime other than dictating the plot was about a vicious losing war in Japan, and then making the rest of the show be absolutely nothing about the vicious losing war in Japan you used to hook your audience and never referencing the vicious losing war in Japan again.

And because I know these arguments are coming up

>They can't open the Total Eclipse anime with a scene of the Yukon characters fighting a bunch of holograms (or whatever) because that would be boring!
But that's the whole problem. Total Eclipse is a boring story where a whole bunch of nothing that has no bearing on the outcome of the war happens. The best you can do is go the 08th MS Team or Gundam 0080 route and write it in a way where the story finds a way to be dramatic and memorable in its own little context. But for Christ's sake, DON'T start your isolated side story with two whole episodes that completely undermine all of the bullshit that happens in the rest of the show.

>The brutal blood-and-guts-everywhere style was really meant to get you interested in reading the VN trilogy
Then fine. The first two episodes are a good introduction to the kinds of things you see in the VNs. That doesn't change the fact it's still a mindnumbingly retarded way to introduce a TV show adapted from a completely separate series of light novels.

Muv-Luv did not invent the Sci-Fi Alien Bug War genre. You don't need to spend an hour brutally depicting the bug war before your audience understands there's bugs in your fictitious universe and humans fight the bugs. Again, if you DO write it that way, you completely misrepresent the setting, tone, and main character of your plot. If anything, it makes your story MORE confusing to newcomers because they're the ones who won't know ahead of time your main plot is really about a completely unrelated cast of test pilots jacking off in Alaska. If you just start the show from the third episode and say "There's a bug war and these people build weapons to fight the bugs," your audience isn't going to be thoroughly lost or confused as to wtf is going on.

Ever heard of the rule "show, don't tell?" Showing hell on the frontlines through the eyes of one of a girl who grew up to become one of the show's main characters is more effective at establishing why humanity needs new weapons then a boring narration info dump would have been.

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Fuck, they could have just used the proper Starship Troopers format by opening the show in the middle of the laser gun mission in Russia, then backtracking to explain how the test base characters met each other and wound up in Russia. There's plenty of more coherent ways you could have started the Total Eclipse anime other than dictating the plot was about a vicious losing war in Japan, and then making the rest of the show be absolutely nothing about the vicious losing war in Japan you used to hook your audience and never referencing the vicious losing war in Japan again.

The first two episodes served to introduce and establish quite a few important things. In particular they really helped establish Yui, a character who is a product of an alternate Japan quite different from the one we know today.

Also, there are things that serve as reminders of what happened in the first two episodes, like Yui's mercy killing that corporal harkening back to when she was unable to mercy kill Yamashiro. Also, if the show is going to concentrate on a project to make a next generation Japanese mech than it makes sense to show what sort of situation Japan is being faced with.

I think the pros to starting the series off the way it did outweigh the cons, you may choose to disagree.

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>They can't open the Total Eclipse anime with a scene of the Yukon characters fighting a bunch of holograms (or whatever) because that would be boring!
But that's the whole problem. Total Eclipse is a boring story where a whole bunch of nothing that has no bearing on the outcome of the war happens. The best you can do is go the 08th MS Team or Gundam 0080 route and write it in a way where the story finds a way to be dramatic and memorable in its own little context. But for Christ's sake, DON'T start your isolated side story with two whole episodes that completely undermine all of the bullshit that happens in the rest of the show.

Just because you find everything after the first two episodes boring doesn't mean the rest of us have to. The tone shift between episodes one and three didn't particularly bother me, and in spite of the occasional annoying bit of fan service/harem stuff I found what followed to have worthwhile drama and action.

I'll not reinvent the wheel, Darthtabby has replied very well. I'll just add one more thing: without the prologue, the viewers are less inclined to be sympathetic to Yui. Because let's face it, she was a major bitch at the start of XFJ; if we start with Yuuya's perspctive and maintain that throughout the series, and skip Kyoto, we don't see that Yui has some very good reasons for being the way she is.

Also, having the prologue follow one POV before shifting to the main character for the rest of the story is hardly unique to Total Eclipse. Fate/Stay Night did it, Modern Warfare did it, so did Dead Space 3... These are just recent examples - there are plenty more. In the above 3 examples, they were not hurt by the shift in protagonist.

Comparing this to the original VN prologue I've seen, where Yui tests the Type-99 Electromagnetic Induction Launcher in a simulator, interposed with Iwaya laying doen the law and getting XJF approved, I think the anime prologue works better.

And for all the complaining about the drama, that's because, like Macross Plus, Total Eclipse is not a big war story; it's a personal story set against the backdrop of war.

__________________

~Speaking my mind, even when it costs me~One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine.

The issue isn't that they switched plots. It's that they established a plot, and then introduced a plot that was related to the plot initially established, but in actuality had little to no direct relevance.

Let me explain: They started with Yui in Japan fighting the BETA. They switched to Alaska with a testing program for creating better TSFs to "fight the BETA." The issue is that the TSF development is basically not related to the BETA at all, and all of the governments of the world are still running around making secret weapons to carry on a ridiculous Cold War scenario, almost oblivious to the whole man-eating aliens thing.

I say this often about Muv-Luv, but they could have pursued that Blue Gender sort of idea in a more 08th MS Team format as was mentioned before. I would have loved to have watched them done some meaningful development of new TSFs whilst fighting off aliens. It's a hell of a lot more entertaining than sitting there saying: "Am I the only one who still cares about the whole aliens thing?"

I don't personally view the role of the Beta in the episodes after the second to be particularly minor.

Its also pretty much a staple of the franchise that petty human rivalries will get in the way of fighting the BETA. Even the main storyline which follows people who are more directly involved with saving the world has it, much to the frustration of the main protagonist. And in fact I consider the main story arc that concentrates most heavily on this aspect to be pretty much the best part of the Alternative game.

Some people have difficulty accepting this aspect of the series, others enjoy it. I fall into the latter group.

There are historical precedents for this kind of thing too, both in fiction and reality. To some extent it could be argued that the Cold War was getting under way before World War II was officially over.

Granted I haven't played the scenario mode in Grenade Grenade 4 in years, but

Spoiler:

after the first POV guy gets nuked, doesn't the entire rest of the game involve the second POV guy going through missions to take down the same villain who nuked the first guy?

That's a little different than "Aliens ate all of my friends and I'm going to make up for it by fighting some random human asshole sitting on a couch surrounded by ominous holographic screens trying too hard to be Ribbons Almark."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

Ever heard of the rule "show, don't tell?" Showing hell on the frontlines through the eyes of one of a girl who grew up to become one of the show's main characters is more effective at establishing why humanity needs new weapons then a boring narration info dump would have been.

Yes, and showing the horrors of war in an alien-infested world WOULD have made sense if the rest of the series had actually been about the horrors of war in an alien-infested world.

Granted I haven't played the scenario mode in Grenade Grenade 4 in years, but

Spoiler:

after the first POV guy gets nuked, doesn't the entire rest of the game involve the second POV guy going through missions to take down the same villain who nuked the first guy?

That's a little different than "Aliens ate all of my friends and I'm going to make up for it by fighting some random human asshole sitting on a couch surrounded by ominous holographic screens trying too hard to be Ribbons Almark."

At this point, Modern Warfare has no more spoilers left, as it's been 6 years since it came out and the other two games have referenced its spoiler points.

Actually I was talking about Al-Fulani, not Jackson; you start out as him, and get executed, but while that happens the game builds the scene and the setting. If you bothered to look around while being driven to your death, that is. Jackson and Soap are more or less co-protagonists, with the POV flipping between either one of them, until it's just Soap. Jackson is a straight up "Oorah!" fighting, Soap is more blackops.

In the same way, Yui's prologue does that same setting and building. She's a Decoy Protagonist, with an Intro Only Point of View. That was a deliberate stylistic choice. Did it work? Your Mileage May Vary. I had no problems, but this appears to be a major issue for you, one which it seems causes you to not be able to enjoy this series.

To each their own, but please try and not mistake your opinion for Gospel.

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Yes, and showing the horrors of war in an alien-infested world WOULD have made sense if the rest of the series had actually been about the horrors of war in an alien-infested world.

Except that, for better or for worse, the war in the alien-infested world is a backdrop towards the core story of Total Eclipse, which is Yuuya Bridges' personal story.

And again, I'd just note that if you were to do a movie about wartime Spitfire R&D, or Ed Thach and the FAGU, you'd run into the same problems; the war doesn't directly involve these people because they're in the rear, doing development.

__________________

~Speaking my mind, even when it costs me~One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine.

You lost me at the part where you started tossing out random TV Tropes vocabulary in a desperate attempt to justify Total Eclipse's plot direction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Except that, for better or for worse, the war in the alien-infested world is a backdrop towards the core story of Total Eclipse, which is Yuuya Bridges' personal story.

So it's a backdrop that adds absolutely nothing and is completely unrelated to what the show turns out to be about.

Yes, that's the problem.

And if I wanted to watch a legit WWII R&D documentary, I would expect it to open in a way that introduces what the documentary is about. If opened telling you in every conceivable way you were about to watch a brutal, in-your-face reenactment of day to day trench warfare and THEN became a R&D documentary in a deliberate "GOTCHA!" move, that would be incredibly stupid.

The Total Eclipse anime is the movie Valkyrie if you keep everything up to Tom Cruise getting his shit fucked up in Africa intact, but then inexplicably jump 20 years later in the middle of the Cold War with a completely different cast of characters and never go back to that whole "Hitler is the enemy of the whole human race" thing again.

You lost me at the part where you started tossing out random TV Tropes vocabulary in a desperate attempt to justify Total Eclipse's plot direction.

Hardly desperate, merely that I'd rather not reinvent the wheel when there's another source I can rely on, which I link to. Doesn't detract from the fact that what I linked to applies to Yui.

Unless TV Tropes terrifies you somehow? In which case, I apologize - I had no idea it was so offensive.

Quote:

So it's a backdrop that adds absolute nothing and is completely unrelated to what the show turns out to be about.

Yes, that's the problem.

Macross Plus had the same problem, Bryan Cranston notwithstanding. ;D I'd argue the same applies as well for Top Gun. And hey, Saving Private Ryan - starts out with Omaha Beach... rapidly turns into a smaller scale story to find one paratrooper.

Quote:

And if I wanted to watch a legit WWII R&D documentary, I would expect it to open in a way that introduces what the documentary is about. If opened telling you in every conceivable way you were about to watch a brutal, in-your-face reenactment of day to day trench warfare and THEN became a R&D documentary in a deliberate "GOTCHA!" move, that would incredibly stupid.

And now you're changing the goalposts. This isn't a dry documentary I'm talking about, I'm talking about a dramatisation. Like that telemovie miniseries about the Avro Arrow. And again, you're strawmanning.

And it amuses me that you're railing on the anime and production team for what you perceive as faults, but don't extend to them the same pass you expect with your own writing. I believe there's a saying about logs in one's eye and dust in another's.

Thank you for providing me with laughs as usual, Hagoshod. XD 8D I'll accept that in lieu of Chinese New Year ang pow packets.

As an aside, why aren't you on Spacebattles yet? Talking with you always gives me a deja vu feeling of those boards.

__________________

~Speaking my mind, even when it costs me~One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine.

Ever heard of the rule "show, don't tell?" Showing hell on the frontlines through the eyes of one of a girl who grew up to become one of the show's main characters is more effective at establishing why humanity needs new weapons then a boring narration info dump would have been.

Yes, and showing the horrors of war in an alien-infested world WOULD have made sense if the rest of the series had actually been about the horrors of war in an alien-infested world.

And it somehow doesn't make sense to showcase hell on the frontlines in a war against aliens when the rest of the series involves developing weapons to help in the fight against those aliens? I think the point I made still stands, alongside with others I made in the same post.

Its fine to dislike a show because something about it did didn't work for you. I've had a nuimber of series that just didn't work very well for me. But that doesn't mean the writers are idiots for handling things the way they did. The writers of TE had plenty of good reasons to write the first two episodes the way they did, especially when you take the need to establish Yui's character and cultural background into account.

So you cited an interview with some hack saying he wrote the first two episodes to establish a gritty alien war setting, when the entire rest of the show has nothing to do with the gritty alien war setting and even actively goes against the basic we're-running-out-of-dudes-because-everyone-is-constantly-getting-killed ideas illustrated in that setting.

okay.

Your movie comparisons don't even make sense. Top Gun opens with a bunch of hotshots on a base goofing around and dogfighting with one moment of relative seriousness (Cougar's mental breakdown). You know what the rest of that movie is? A 90 minute extension of more hotshots on a base goofing around and dogfighting with one moment of relative seriousness (Goose's death). Saving Private Ryan opens with Tom Hanks getting plopped down in a shithole, and the entire rest of the plot after that revolves around getting him out of the aforementioned shithole.

In both of those cases, Point B is a logical continuation of Point A. In Total Eclipse's case, episode 3 is NOT a continuation of episode 2.

Now, Top Gun hypothetically could have opened with a full-blown brutal flashback showing the backstory of Maverick's dad as an F-4 pilot, where he stays behind in a hopeless situation so the rest of his squadron could retreat in Vietnam. The reason it doesn't do that is because it would have been ridiculously out of place in hindsight (hi first two episodes of Total Eclipse) and Tony Scott knew he wasn't trying to tell a hard hitting story about the sacrifices of war (hi whoever thought the first two episodes of Total Eclipse were a good idea).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

And it amuses me that you're railing on the anime and production team for what you perceive as faults, but don't extend to them the same pass you expect with your own writing. I believe there's a saying about logs in one's eye and dust in another's.

So you cited an interview with some hack saying he wrote the first two episodes to establish a gritty alien war setting, when the entire rest of the show has nothing to do with the gritty alien war setting and even actively goes against the basic we're-running-out-of-dudes-because-everyone-is-constantly-getting-killed ideas illustrated in that setting.

Funny, I thought the in universe reason the XFJ project exists in the first place, frontline combat testing in Kamchatka, and the repercussions of people mistreating war refugees all had quite a bit to do with that gritty alien war setting.

Ultimately, it was necessary for the early episodes to establish a bunch of stuff about the setting and make it so that the audience could understand Yui's character, and I think the dramatic approach the writers chose to take was a better way to do this than boring mass info dumping. Not only did this approach provide necessary info, it managed to throw in some emotionally powerful backstory for one of the key characters in the series to boot.

As I said earlier, I think the problem with the first two episodes is really that the writers did their jobs a little too well.